Thursday, November 27, 2014

Now I have two spurs

It didn't take too long after moving in to our new home before plans were hatched on how to fit the Waterloo spur into the basement.  Not just part of the basement, all of the basement.  But one has to be reasonable and work in achievable chunks, so I started with preparing the pre-studded 14' x 12' room with electrical outlets, lighting, and drywall.  This would be where the end of the branch, Elmira, will be located.

I couldn't get too excited about mudding the drywall, so the spur was hung up and I now knew where I needed to cut in bridge pieces required because the existing modules were not an exact fit into the new space.



Next up, organizing all those magazines and hanging up the last couple of modules.  Once they're all set, I'll stack them in the middle of the room and finish the walls.  This will involve coving the upper portion of the corners and then completing the mudding and painting.  I also have to figure out the layout lighting, valance, and ceiling tiles.  This should keep me busy for a while.

A more difficult project will be going back to each module and re-laying the rail.  I've found that ACC does not do a great job of holding the rail securely.  There are stretches where the rail has completely popped out of the tie strips.  I'm going to give Pliobond a try, perhaps reinforced with PC board ties at regular intervals.  Certainly the turnouts are all going to be rebuilt the Joe Fugate hybrid way.  And I think I will add PC board ties epoxied to wood risers at the module joints, based on my experience with the Pine Street spur.

Ah yes, the other "Spur" in my basement.  It has found a home in the room on the other side of the wall from Elmira.  I built supports to hold the Pine Street modules over a bookshelf that I had built to hold my model railroading magazines.  Plans are to hang a stretch of drywall from the ceiling to form a backdrop, and to add lighting.  More details will be forthcoming in a separate post later.